Next year: eighteen years old.

When I think that next year in September I will be 18 years old many thoughts come to my mind. I'm glad because I will be able to take my driving license. When I was sixteen many friends had their own motorbike, but I couldn't because my parents wouldn't. So I have had the obligation to go everywhere with them. But next year... The things will change. A car is like a freedom passport, you can go anywhere you want. The only problem will be the car, in my family we are three (without counting the dog) and there are only two cars. I'll have to share one. Well, firstly I have to pass two exams, a theoretical one and a practical one, the first one doesn't worry me as much as the second one.

The second advantage is that I will be able to vote, and you feel that you fit in the society. Other thing to consider is that I will be able to go to jail, that's maybe disadvantage, but I'm not a troublemaker, I don't feel worried about this. If there isn't a turn for the worst this year I'll finish high school and that's a big change in my routine, because  I have been here for six years, waking up very early every morning and going to sleep late at night. 

Marriages

So your first marriage did not work out. But now you’ve found another special someone. Maybe you have kids from your previous marriage. Maybe your new partner does. Maybe you are dreaming about the bucolic life you will all live together once your families are joined through marriage – happily, peacefully, without conflict.

Time to snap out of it. Even if everyone gets along fabulously and your child-rearing philosophies are similar, it might not be so rosy. For one thing, divorce rates are higher in remarriages, reports US site SmartStepFamilies.com. Financially, blended or stepfamily dynamics are tricky: his money, her money, ex-spouses, past financial obligations and future ones, to o. All in all, combining families takes a little more financial – and life – planning.

Of course, you won’t be alone on this road. About four out of 10 US marriages include at least one step-relative, according to a Pew Research Center survey. In the UK, 10% of all families are stepfamilies, according to UK charity One Plus One. In Japan, one out of four marriages is a remarriage for one or both spouses. That figure rises to one out of three marriages in New Zealand, according to The International Handbook of Stepfamilies.

Here are some tips for swimming in the blended family waters, financially and otherwise.

What it will take: Honesty. Before you become a stepfamily, sit down with your partner and discuss everything — the good, the bad, and the financial.

I can't speak about the perspective of a stepfamily because in my particular case my parents are together for 19 years, but I think that discussing different viewpoints, benefits to the couple. To take part in quotidian conversations is positive, always dialoguing ang keeping the respect. I supose that living together is not easy (problems in the work (if you have), children's education (if you have), tiredness...) but I think that is important to be patient and comprehensive. Some days are bad for one and some for the other one. 

To initiate a new relationship perhaps is not difficult but to keep it with the ties of the past is different (how the article shows). Each member will have more affinity or love to its own children although one make an effort in order not to do differences. So how it says the article "sit down with your partner and discuss everything."

To snap out

Child rearing

Blended

Tricky

Glasgow helicopter crash: Four victims named by police

Four of the eight people who died when a police helicopter crashed into a busy Glasgow pub on Friday have been named.

Police Scotland confirmed the three helicopter crew were among the dead. They were pilot David Traill, 51, and Police Constables Kirsty Nelis, 36, and 43-year-old Tony Collins.

Gary Arthur, 48, from the Paisley area, has been named as among five people who died in The Clutha bar.

Police said they cannot rule out the possibility of more bodies being found.

Police Scotland Chief Constable Sir Stephen House said the force's helicopter crashed into the pub as it was returning from an earlier operation at about 22:25 on Friday.

This helicopter crash ended with 8 lives in Glasgow. In the accident four men were identified as middle aged between 36 and 51. It's a shame, some of them (the crew of the helicopter returned from work) and the other ones were having fun in a pub. Cruelty of life took people at random to die. This accident could have produced more dead people because the pub was too concurred. Four more bodies without life have to be identified, this is very hard for all families waiting for these awful news.

Once more the accident could answer to a human error or perhaps to a mecanical problem, anyway for people who have died it doesn't matter, they are no more staying among us.

Crew

Playstation 4

Sony's PlayStation 4 was launched in the UK at midnight and is already "starting to sell out".

Fans camped overnight for a chance to get their hands on one of the consoles.

The first-come first-served launch was considered one of the only ways for people to get hold of a console before Christmas.

Amazon said customers who had not pre-ordered before 13 November would not receive a console in time for Christmas.

The UK launch comes two weeks after the PS4 was launched in the US and a week after Microsoft's Xbox One was launched worldwide. Both consoles sold over a million in the first 24 hours.

In a statement to the BBC a Sony spokesman said: "We are starting to sell out - very rapidly but [we] will continue to work with all parts of the supply chain including our partners at retail to get more, as and when we can."

The company said it was facing "unprecedented" demand and it would be setting up a stock-tracker website to help customers find "those elusive units".

The launches are seen as a fight for dominance in the key Christmas season says the BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones.

Imran Choudhary was the first in the queue outside the venue in Covent Garden, London.

"It was always my goal to try and be one of the first people in the country to get hold of a PS4," he said.

First of all, I must admit that I'm a big fan of Playstation, I have two of them (2 and 3). I won't have the new one because I don't play with my PS3, I don't have enough time and nowadays I spend more hours chatting or playing in my mobile. The price is quite high, about five hundred Euros, but they used to get lower with time. I hope that one of my friends will buy it to play with them on my free time, probably on Christmas or in summer. It isn't recommended to buy the first PS4 type, because they use to improve it.

If anyone how is reading this post and wants to buy PS4 I don't recommend it because I have heard that some consoles don't open correctly. 

The competency of the Sony's company is Xbox consoles, they are a bit more expensive ones but they offer different functions. 

Camped overnight

Chain

Queue

R.I.P Paul Walker

Fans, friends and fellow stars have been paying tribute to US actor Paul Walker, who has died in a car crash.

Walker was best-known for playing Brian O'Conner in the Fast & Furious films.

The 40-year-old died on Saturday when a Porsche being driven by a friend, who also died, crashed near Los Angeles.

Walker's co-star Jordana Brewster said: "Paul was pure light. I cannot believe he is gone." Fellow Fast & Furious actor Vin Diesel wrote that "heaven has gained a new angel".

"Brother, I will miss you very much," Diesel said on Twitter.

In a second message, he said: "My heart is hurting so sad. Paul Walker was a good man. RIP my friend... Sorry to the Walker family."

Walker starred in five of the six movies in the popular Fast & Furious franchise and had started filming the seventh.

The accident happened while Walker was attending an event for his charity Reach Out Worldwide.

Paul Walker's death is very sad news. This young actor was just 40 years old. His life was stolen by an accident. He was beside a driver friend who also died in this tragic accident. The Porsche driven by his friend finalized unrecognizable. Sometimes, we feel a kind of jealousy seeing the richness's life of this actors, milionaire houses, exceptional cars but death doesn't make differences.

Paul Walker died while was going to attend to a charity event, it shows which kind of heart he had. At the moment he was starring in a film called "Top Gun 7". It is shocking to lose such an actor in these circumstances, going to do a good act and being not guilty. 

Starred: http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=starred

Paying tribute: http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=paying%20tribute

Franchise: http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=franchise

Four people have been killed and 63 injured in a passenger train crash in the Bronx area of New York City.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25176496

Eleven of the injured are believed to be in a critical condition in hospital.

The Metro-North train's locomotive and carriages derailed as the train went into a bend in the railway line near Spuyten Duyvil station.

At least one eyewitness said the train - the 05:54 from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central Station - was travelling much faster than normal at the time.

None of the carriages went into the adjacent Hudson or Harlem rivers - although pictures from the scene suggest this nearly happened.

The train appeared to be going "a lot faster'' than normal as it approached the curve coming into the station, passenger Frank Tatulli told WABC-TV.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said the curve where the derailment occurred was in a slow speed area, and that the train's black box recorder should be able to tell how fast the train was travelling.

Joel Zaritsky was travelling on the train to attend a dental convention in New York City.

"I was asleep and I woke up when the car started rolling several times," he told the Associated Press news agency.

This accident could have been worse, thanks God it has just been two deaths, according to Spanish's televion news, of these eleven critical injures. How is shown on the picture we can guess that it ran too fast at the entrance of this bend, where is supposed to be driven slower. If the train had fallen down in the river the tragic balance could have been increased.

This year we have had such an accident in Galicia also due to the excessive speed of a train in a bend. It was the worst accident's train in Spain.

The rail's technology has improved a lot but we have to take care with driver's mistakes. This accident has happened in New York but a train's crash can happens everywhere.

Derailed:http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=derailed

Eyewitness: http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=eyewitness

US moves to ban trans fats in food.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24856146

"US food safety officials have taken steps to ban the use of trans fats, saying they are a threat to health.

Trans fats, also known as partially hydrogenated oils, are no longer "generally recognised as safe", said the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The regulator said a ban could prevent 7,000 deaths and 20,000 heart attacks in the US each year.

The FDA is opening a 60-day consultation period on the plan, which would gradually phase out trans fats.

"While consumption of potentially harmful artificial trans fat has declined over the last two decades in the United States, current intake remains a significant public health concern," FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said in a statement.

"The FDA's action today is an important step toward protecting more Americans from the potential dangers of trans fat."

The ruling does not affect foods with naturally occurring trans fats, which are present in small amounts in certain meat and dairy products.

Artificial trans fats are used both in processed food and in restaurants as a way to improve the shelf life or flavour of foods. The fats are created when hydrogen is added to vegetable oil, making it a solid. Nutritionists have long criticised their use, saying they contribute to heart disease more than saturated fat. Some companies have already phased out trans fats, prompted by new nutritional labels introduced in 2006 requiring it to be listed on food packaging. New York City and some other local governments have also banned it. But trans fats persist primarily in processed foods - including some microwave popcorns and frozen pizzas - and in restaurants that use the oils for frying."

Nowdays trans fats are usually used to improve the aliment's life, to make the shelf life and the flavour foods longer Manufactured foods like frozen pizzas or frying oils, contain this trans fats.
Safety officials of the USA advertise that this kind of fats are worse than the saturated fats.

They say that if this trans fats were banned they could prevent 7.000 death and 20.000 heart attacks in US each year and that's an amazing amount, deathts are nearly like my town's population. These heart attacks are expensive to heal.

FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is opening a 60 days consultation to ban this trans fats gradually. Probably there are people who is against this ban but on the other hand I suppose that there is some people who agree with this to protect their families against obesity or other isues.

Probably there are lots of intereses comming from the food industry (restaurants, supermarkets...),  but it would be important to take care of  the population  health.

Ban: http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=ban
Phase out: http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=phase%20out 
Shelf life: http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=shelf%20life

Gladiator's music

*I recommend to play the video below before reading this essay*

I have found the song of the year! That's it: "elysium", "honor him" and "now we are free". What do you feel when you hear them? freedom indeed. When we hear these songs automatically the first thought in our brain is the moving movie "Gladiator"; Russell Crowe played the leading role in an outstanding plot. Where a brave soldier, called Hispano, got the opportunity to be Cesar but he refused it because he was missing his family. Cesar's son wasn't able to be the main representative in the glorious empire of the moment, so he tried to kill the soldier but he couldn't so then he murdered Hispano's family. The poor man's life lost all his purpose, he had fought all this time just to meet another time his wife and his son, but he couldn't. He was taken by slave's traffickers and he survived, nothing else, only be alive. Since he recovered the desire to live: to murder his dear's murder. He fought as a slave and he won like a champion, he kept fighting to meet his challenge, instead of being hard, instead of being difficult, instead of his body injuries. Finally he could kill the son's Cesar, he didn't get a wood's sword with his freedom, he got a better prize, the freedom of his own soul. After all this time he could return with his family in his beautiful home place. 

Let me return to the songs, I don't know what my classmates feel this year but when we finish this course we will be as the soldier, free, our ways will be different. That's a bit what happens with the slaves in the film.  The first song "Elysium" when we can see in the video is preparation for the battle where you have to train very hard to be able to win the battle. As the movie shows the way will be long and not easy at all but it's necessary. You will have a hundred temptations to give up but you must keep fighting. In our case this way is obviously studying and doing our homework every day. Then the second song represents the fight in our case selectivity, the first important test in our young lives, it will mark us in a positive or negative way... Finally the last song, "we are free", easy to see the similarity, we are free!

So, I definetly have found the songs of second, but I don't want to finish like the soldier, I want to get the freedom but then I want to approach it.  

The necessity of laughing.

Everyone is different and every person has his own needs. Moreover, most of us have never known someone who has not laughed ever, that is why is difficult to say what would happen to someone who has never laughed. However, most humans need laugh loudly occasionally because it is proved that it gives physical health, mental health and social benefits. 

The best known and the biggest benefits are probably the mental ones. Everyone knows that laughing deletes stress and anxiety and these are factors that makes you less happy. But, what about the physical benefits? Did you know that laughing prevents heart diseases? This is only one benefit; even though, there are a lot: it relaxes muscles, it boosts immunity… We can’t forget the social benefits too. It is helpful for strengthen relationships, for avoid conflicts, it improves teamwork...

What’s the purpose of our life? According to some philosophers, is the personal research to the happiness and the only way to achieve it, is laughter. We have a natural sense of humour, nobody taught us how we had to laugh when we were only days old, but we did. It’s the only natural way to express our feelings with the crying, obviously the first one express the happiness while the second one express bad feelings.

In our society we are educated to earn money and success in the future, so people think that their objectives in the world are to be as rich as possible the day of their death, it’s completely false! You won’t need any stuff in the place you will go after die... So we have to approach every second to be happy and delay the other as much as possible.

To sum up we would like to say “don’t worry, be happy because life lasts two days”. Worries bring problems while laugher eliminate them. Definitely laugh isn’t necessary to live but it’s required to live good, as a person. So, if you want to do a favor to yourself or to the people around you, laugh in every opportunity you have and give a smile to yourself and to everybody.

http://www.helpguide.org/life/humor_laughter_health.htm. 

Obama's speech 2010

Hi Sonia! That's an email to explain you about my goals in a short and a long term. Until now I have earned good grades (in my opinion) and I have played tennis almost every afternoon, so that's a little challenge that I have successfuly passed. Some days I was tired after school but I always went to my tennis class because "you become good at things through hard work". I have lost a lot of matches, of course, but I have never given up. I won't probably be a professional tennis player (because it's very difficult) but I have the second chance to get a scholarship to study abroad (USA). In the future I will meet challenges more difficult but I have to face them and keep fighting like now. 

Well, as I said in the introduction I have the chance to study in USA, clearly that's my short term goal. I have to put my best to earn good grades and achieve go there. Probably most of the people set their own goals but if I go there I will be too much focused trying to fit in and getting my university degree. I will meet challenges every day so it will be enought, my dream is to meet all this little goals.

Long term goals are difficult to say, our lives are changing every time. As Obama said "I have to discover what am good at" so my responsibility is to discover what it is and put my best to develop that. I want to pay my bills in the future so it's important to get a job but keep going with my own live if it's posible. Maybe that's my long term dream, to get a job but without forgetting my live, to approach every single free time I will have. 

Obama's speech was very moving in my opinion, it's like a movie of the poor guy that meet all their goals after having a lot of chances to get a turn for the worse, but he didn't give up and nowadays is the president of the USA. It's a good example of success like Michael Jordan and J.K.Rowling. I liked so much the idea that every one of us are special doing something. While I was watching the vidio I was asking myself (me too?), but mr.Obama said it very convinced so may be true. 

To sum up I must say that it's positive that we thing on dreams but is more important to approach our adolescence. There is a catalan expression that I love so much and says "what didn't kill you makes you stronger" similar to "You have to let your failatures teach you". I think that this sentences are my conclusion, I have to try and if I fail I have to learn of it and keep going, always keep going.